


Veronica Mars, Season 1, Episode 1, Pilot

by TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Analysis, Episode Review, Episode: s01e01 Pilot, Meta, Nonfiction, Season/Series 01, Series Premiere, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-30
Updated: 2020-03-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:28:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23388769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer/pseuds/TheSomewhatRamblingReviewer
Summary: Warning: Contains spoilers for the episode and the rest of the series. Complete.





	Veronica Mars, Season 1, Episode 1, Pilot

Open to the credits.

Afterwards, shots of people wandering around Neptune High are shown as an unseen Veronica has a voiceover explaining the setting is in California and there’s no middle class in Neptune. The adults are either millionaires or work for millionaires.

Getting out of a car, she continues, rather than a fast-food job, she’s a private eye. Following the crowd, she finds Wallace strapped naked to a flagpole with ‘snich’ written across his chest.

Veronica cuts him down. “You’re new here, huh? Welcome to Neptune High.”

Later, Veronica is sleeping in class. Waking her up, the teacher makes her a volunteer, and her interpretation of Poe’s work is, “Life’s a bitch, until you die.”

After class, she VOs about random locker students not being truly random, and then, meets Principal Clemmons and Deputy Sacks at hers.

The police dog barks, and she simply gives a stern, “Buster!”

Opening her locker reveals a picture of Clemmons in a heart-shaped frame. “Wow, this is a little embarrassing,” she says.

At lunch, she picks at her food while pizza is delivered to the 099er table. It established, when her dad was sheriff, she sat with them. Duncan Kane comes into view, and she explains they used to date.

There’s a flashback of her with long hair walking down the hallway with his arm around her. Then, there’s a time-jump within the flashback, and she tries to talk to him, but he walks right past her. There’s a boy with a hand on his shoulder as they walk, and his face is hidden, but I’m pretty sure it’s Logan.

Back in the present, Logan is shown. He briefly sits on Duncan’s lap, and Veronica accurately explains him as, “Every school has an obligatory psychotic jackass; he’s ours.”

At some point, Wallace has sat down across from her, and her response is, “Did I say you could sit here?”

Rolling his eyes, he quietly starts to leave, but she realises she’s being harsh to someone who hasn’t done anything to her or anyone she cares about. “Of course, you can sit here. Sit wherever you want.”

Weevil and the PCHers appears, and it’s revealed they were the ones responsible for putting Wallace on the flagpole. Veronica orders him to leave Wallace alone, and he makes sexual entendres. She easily holds her own. Felix, another PCHer, is introduced here.

Appearing, Clemmons shoos the PCHers away. “Veronica, why does trouble follow you around?”

After he leaves, Veronica asks what Wallace did to be put on the PCHer target list. There’s a flashback of him working at a convenience store. He hits the silent alarm when some PCHers start stealing.

Back in the present, Veronica says they have a sheriff’s department rather than police.

Going back to the flashback, up there with Logan in my least favourite characters, Don Lamb appears at the store. He shows his incompetence by taking Wallace outside to identify the shoplifters despite a whole slew of PCHers sitting nearby on motorcycles.

Incidentally, that is an awesome shot.

So, yeah, because Lamb has no idea how to do proper police work, Wallace lies.

I don’t blame him for not possibly risking his life for some beer and snacks. However, making a Wizard of OZ reference, Lamb makes a big deal about his supposed cowardice.

“Congratulations, sport,” Veronica says. “In your short time here, you’ve already managed to piss off a motorcycle gang and the local sheriff.”

At a hotel, Veronica remembers her mum, Duncan, and other classmates throwing her a birthday party. In the present, someone calls her name, and looking hopefully around, she asks, “Mom?”

It turns out to be a neighbour needing help with her groceries.

The next scene has her going into her house/flat/living residence to greet a cute pit bull by the name of Backup.

They go to beach to play fetch, and she sees Wallace flying a remote-controlled plane.

At the Mars office, she VOs about being shocked to see Celeste Kane’s car there due to Celeste hating her as much as Celeste loves Duncan. A lawyer friend of the Mars family, Cliff, appears.

At this point, the Mars family is apparently trying to keep the fact Veronica works cases a secret, but Cliff is no fool. He tells her he’s just going to leave an open file on her desk, and if she happens to look at, cool. Then, he goes on to explain a client took a baseball bat to a laundry machine that stole her quarters. She works as a dancer at a club, and she’s willing to explain how they manage to illegally keep their liquor license in exchange for a deal.

I’m not sure what the case is here, but okay.

Cliff leaves, and Celeste comes out from the office. Bluntly telling Keith she dislikes him in front of his teenage daughter, she declares she’ll contact him and orders him not to call her at home.

She leaves, and Keith awkwardly greets his daughter before going back to his office.

Veronica looks out the window to watch Celeste drive away. “Sure, she’s a bitch, but can you blame her? After all, Dad did try to send her husband to jail for life.”

Later, Veronica and Keith are eating, and she tries to get information about Celeste’s presence. He tries to avoid it, but eventually, he reveals Celeste suspects her husband of having an affair. He gets a call, and it turns out he’s something of a bounty hunter, too. Getting ready to leave, he tells her to leave the Kane case alone.

Then, he adds she should take Backup when she disregards his orders. Heh.

At Kane Software (Softwares?), Veronica sits in her car to watches Jake Kane in his office. She gives some exposition on him and the company, and there’s a flashback to her doing a car wash with Lilly Kane.

“I’ve got a secret,” Lilly declares. “A good one.”

A woman yells at them to focus on washing rather than talking, and Lilly’s last words to Veronica are, “Later.”

The flashback continues in the night. Police lights are flashing, and leaving Veronica in the police car, he goes to the Kane house. Veronica sees a blank-faced, rocking Duncan sitting outside. Going over to him, she urgently asks what happened.

Then, it goes over to Keith looking down at a dead Lilly. Lamb and Jake try to comfort a sobbing Celeste.

Unable to get Duncan to talk to her, Veronica goes to where Keith is, and she sees her best friend’s dead body.

It’s revealed, due to accusations of mishandling the case, Keith was ousted as Sheriff.

Back in the present, she follows Jake to a hotel. She expresses her cynicism about marriage, and there’s a flashback to her being alerted to a leaked crime scene video featuring Lilly’s dead body.

Keith was blamed for the video being leaked.

Past Veronica runs into Logan, and he quietly and tearfully asks if Keith still thinks Jake did it. I think Dohring was going for a mixture of confused, hurt, angry, and disappointed, but to me, Logan comes across as purely menacing. “That’s my girlfriend. Your friend. Duncan’s sister. Your dad is destroying the Kane family. What’s the matter with you people, huh? What’s the matter with you?”

Over at the Mars house, Keith is insisting to her mother, Leanne, that Jake is guilty.

Veronica VOs an emergency recall removed Keith from office, and Leanne left soon after. They had to move out of their house, but they both refused to leave Neptune.

There’s a news report on Abel Koontz. He’s a disgruntled former employee of Kane Software(s), and police found evidencing suggesting he killed Lilly.

Back in the present, the PCHers approach Veronica’s car. Her brief eye-roll is a perfect testament to how fearlessly hardened she can. Weevil motions for her to roll down her window, and she complies. One of them threateningly approaches the car, and jumping out, Backup tries to chew off his trousers. Coming over, Felix yells at her, and she tazes him.

Calling Backup off, she offers that, if Weevil leaves Wallace alone for a week, she’ll make sure his shoplifters walk. He asks why she cares so much for “that skinny Negro”. He suggests Veronica and Wallace are having sex, and sarcastically, she cheerfully confirms it. Felix starts to get up, and she casually makes her tazer spark.

Weevil calls Felix over. To her, he says, “We get it: You’re a badass. But for once, don’t be stupid.”

“Not bad advice,” she pointedly retorts.

He agrees to give her one week with the threat to come after her, Wallace, and Backup afterwards. Not appreciating this, Backup lets out a growl.

Weevil makes another sexual comment, and they ride off.

In a VO, she brings up her reputation. “You wanna know how I lost my virginity? So do I.”

There’s a flashback to her at a party. Someone hands her a drink, and soon, she’s wandering around disoriented. In a lawn chair near a hot tub, she loses consciousness.

Then, she wakes up in a bed with her underwear on the ground.

She VOs she never told her dad.

Back in the present, Jake leaves the hotel.

The next day, at Neptune High, Veronica is walking around the parking lot, and Logan drives up beside her. He’s his usual jackass self: He slut-shames her, brings up her mother’s drinking problem, and taunts her about not knowing where Leanne is until Duncan finally tells him to stop.

It’s established it’s been eight months since she saw Leanne, and there’s a flashback of Veronica waking up to find a unicorn music box and note from her mother saying she’d be back for Veronica someday.

Back to the present, Veronica sits down with Wallace in the quad. He brings up her reputation, and then, says he’d rather hang out with the person who helped him as opposed to the punks who laughed at him and digitally recorded his misfortune.

“So, you wanna get the PCH bike club off your ass?”

The next scene has them talking to Corny, Neptune High’s resident stoner. The dialogue suggests they want him to plant drugs somewhere or on someone.

Next, Veronica is downloading the pictures she took at the hotel.

That night, Keith comes home. He caught a bail jumper earlier, and he and Veronica have dialogue establishing how close they are.

When he’s cooking steaks, she gives him the pictures of license plates. His mood changes when he sees the picture. Ordering her to stay away from Jake, he says her he’s dropping the case anyway. Confused, she demands answers, but he’s insistent.

At the club of Cliff’s client, she explains she’s going to get Wallace out of his trouble.

The next day, she rushes through the hallway with Wallace ordering her to slow down. She stops him at a corner, and they watch Logan open his locker. He’s promptly arrested for having drug paraphernalia. He threatens Veronica, and she awesomely does a fake yawn.

She tells Wallace to meet her after school.

Outside the police station, Veronica and Wallace use a controller to set off the drug paraphernalia. This causes the fire alarm to go off, and the firefighters arrive to secure the evidence room. During all this, an accented receptionist, Igna, is introduced.

At the fire station, Veronica asks if the chief made the switch, and he hands her an envelope. She VOs plenty of people still love Keith. There’s a transition to her at the Mars office, and she’s looking at the license plates. Then, imitating Igna, she claims over the phone that the station computers are down. Therefore, she needs this person on the other end to run some plates relating to a hit-and-run driver.

It’s revealed the car is registered to Leanne Mars.

I don’t know if there’s a time jump or not, but Keith comes out to ask if Veronica wants to see a movie. She asks why the Kane case is being dropped.

He lies he ran the plates, and it turns out it’s corporate espionage stuff. She pretends to accept this for the moment.

Over at the station, she and Igna talk, and Igna shows her continuing respect and loyalty towards Keith.

There’s a flashback to Veronica after the party coming in. She tells Igna she needs to report a crime, and in Lamb’s office, he either doesn’t care or refuses to believe Veronica was raped, and then, he taunts her when she cries.

Ugh.

Back in the present, Veronica shows up for the trial of the two shoplifters Cliff is defending. Lamb tries to show a tape of them stealing, but it ends up being a tape of one of his officers escorting a dancer from the club to his car. Inside it, she disappears from view with it being clear she’s about to perform oral sex.

Cliff asks if this is an appropriate time to ask for a dismissal in his other client’s case. Veronica makes a gun motion at Lamb.

At the beach, Veronica gives Wallace the security tape. Making a comment about her being a marshmallow inside, and he starts to teach her how to fly his plane before noticing something is happening to her car.

They go over, and Logan is lounging on it with other 099ers standing by. He takes a tire iron to her headlights. He’s annoyed his car was taken away, and approaching her, he menacingly holds the tire iron across the back of his neck.

Weevil and the PCHers show up.

Logan says, “Listen, man, I don’t have a problem with you.”

Well, like both me and Veronica, Weevil has a problem with him.

Felix is going through one of the 099er cars. He asks if a particular CD is any good. His little sister likes the music, but she also likes ponies and juice boxes.

Taking a tire iron, though, I’m not sure if he took it from Logan or brought his own, Weevil goes over to the car, and ignoring one of the 099er’s protests that it’s his mother’s car rather than Logan’s, he hits it a few times. He demands Logan apologise to Veronica.

Logan refuses, and Weevil punches him in the gut. Logan still refuses, and so, Weevil punches him in the face.

Veronica is fine with this, but when she sees Logan’s unsteady movements, she does tell Weevil to let him go.

He asks if she’s sure, and she answers, “I don’t want his apology.”

The 099ers leave, and flirting, Weevil suggests she take her car to his uncle’s body shop. She orders him to apologise, and thinking he went too far in his comments, he does, but she clarifies she meant to Wallace.

She informs him Wallace has the only copy of the convenience store tape. Weevil apologises.

Wallace refuses to give the tape back.

That night, Veronica VOs she had one person she could trust, but she’s learned part of the business is being let down by everyone. She waits until Keith leaves the office, and then, goes in and opens his safe. She discovers Keith is still working on Lilly’s case, and the picture she took of her mother’s license plate is also in there.

She wonders why he lied.

Keith comes in. She claims to have forgotten some books. He says they’re going to her favourite restaurant. When she says she’ll meet him later, he accepts this but does make it clear he’s worried about her.

She leaves, and he looks at the unicorn music box over the VO of her trying to come to terms with being lied to

As she drives, she declares she can’t wait for him to be ready to share.

Knocking on the hotel room, she receives no answer, and she vows to find the truth and bring her family back together.

Fin.


End file.
